Essays That Worked (Class of 2019) | JHU

College Essays - Top 141 Essays That Worked

Most of these tips are in the video WRITING COLLEGE TRANSFER ESSAYS THAT WORK found in the media center. This "Tip Sheet" will serve to refresh your memory and avoid using limited time with your Writing Center Staff Person about these nitty gritty details. Remember to write your essay for your audience, not yourself! That reader knows nothing about you other than what you write. You need to make your words create a 3-dimensional real individual in the reader's mind---a person he/she wants to know more about, a person like no other! Show, don't tell.

EDITING

Scholarly, creative, and inventive essays are welcome. Essays that work within and transgress disciplinary boundaries as well as essays that connect the North American South with its porous historic geography are also welcome. We encourage work that engages entanglement and diaspora. We also welcome papers that do not necessarily engage Yaeger but that traffic in the theme of dirt and desire more broadly. In Fall of 2015, we’ll go “deep”; in the Spring of 2016, we’ll go to dirt and desire.

If you are a high school senior who is applying to college early and you haven’t yet started to write your application essay(s)… start today. Even if your first deadline isn’t until January, it makes sense to begin the process of producing your essay sooner rather than later. I’ve advised more than 250 high school students on their college application essays over the past 15 years and during that time I’ve developed a blueprint for what makes a good (and not so good) application essay. So as you write, or as you reflect on what you have already written, consider the following qualities of college application essays that work:

Fall 2003 - Essays that Worked - Hamilton College

My goal is to create essays that work at more than one level. Some short essays work for me at the level of the intellect – they’re cool and clever – but I want to read essays that work not only at the level of the intellect, but at the levels of the heart and soul as well.

Essays that Work: Best Advice from Admissions Officers

Summer 2008 - More Essays that Worked - Hamilton College

So, by all means, have a look at some good essays to give you a general idea of how other students have completed this highly personal, highly specific assignment. But when you sit down to write your own, look into your own mind, your own heart, your own soul to formulate the essay that works for you.